Lecture Notes from Mr.
Tien

Manager, Dong Khanh Hotel, Ho Chi Minh
City, to students on Campus Abroad Viet Nam, July 1998. Mr. Tien was
a High School Teacher before he became the manager of the Dong
Khanh. I thank him - JKS.

I. Biography of Nguyen Du

--Born 1766 into a very learned family

--Father had been a prime minister in the Le
Dynasty

--His brothers were high ranking officials in the Le
Dynasty

II. Historical Situation

By the end of the 18th
century, the Le Dynasty, after almost 300 years on the throne, had been
weakened. The king of Le was like a puppet. Power
in the country was shared by two big families: The Trinh family
to the North and the Nguyen family in the
South. The country was at war; the two families fought each
other for the power and the king did nothing.
The national hero, Nguyen Hue from the Tay Son (Qui
Nhon) defeated both the Nguyen family and the Trinh family.
Afterward the last king of the Le Dynasty, Le
Chieu Thong, went to China to beg for help. He asked the
King of China (Thanh Dynasty), King Cau Long, to
send troops to Viet Nam to help him gain back the throne of his
ancestors. In 1789 Thanh's troops were
also defeated by Nguyen Hue, and he became a King by
the name of Quang Trung. Nguyen Du and his family had tried
to follow Le Chieu Thong (to China), but they had
to stay in Viet Nam. They were loyal to the former king of
Le and were afraid of the Nguyen Dynasty which took over in
1802. Nguyen Anh overthrew the Tay Sons and he became the
new king [the first of the Nguyen Dynasty which continued until Bao Dai
abdicated in 1945-ed. note] by the name of Gia Long. Gia
Long asked Nguyen Du to join the new government. It was against
Nguyen Du's willingness, but he had no choice.

III. The Concept

The Vietnamese are a
very learned people and were deeply influenced by the concepts of
King-Master-Father of the great Chinese philosopher,
Confucius. [He taught that] you must be loyal to your king-no matter
what. Nguyen Du and his family had benefited a lot
from the former Le Dynasty, which explains why Nguyen Du
was unwilling to join the new government. He
considered it an act of disloyalty to the former king. As a learned
man, he was afraid of being disregarded by the people of his time
and felt it would bring shame to his family name, because
he was being faithful to the concepts of Confucius.

IV. Kieu's Story

(Also titled the equivalent of The New Scream
that Cuts Your Guts)

In order to explain his
situation, Nguyen Du was inspired by the story of KIM VAN KIEU by a
Chinese author, Thanh Tam Tai Than (pen name). The
story had three main characters: Kim Trong, Thuy Van, and Thuy
Kieu. The culture of Viet Nam was deeply influenced by
Chinese culture. But if we believe that Nguyen Du was
only translating the Chinese original we would be mistaken.
Nguyen Du only wanted to borrow that story to convey his
concept, his situation, his memory of the dynasty that had been lost.
Furthermore the story was written in [the Vietnamese] 6-8 verse.
It was a very popular verse form and everyone, from farmers to learned
men, could understand it.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN KIEU AND THE AUTHOR NGUYEN DU

Kieu sold herself to settle the
debt of her family

Nguyen Du considered the action of
joining the new government as selling
himself

Kieu had to endure suffering and
hardship

Nguyen Du suffered greatly because
of his loyalty to his former king

Deep in her heart, Kieu stays
faithful to Kim Trong

Nguyen Du was truly loyal to the
Le Dynasty

Finally Kieu was reunited with Kim
Trong

Nguyen Du hoped for the return of
his king

This is the story of a
young lady named Vuong Thuy Kieu. Kieu was very beautiful and learned as
well. She was born into a well-educated family, and
she was in love with a young man, Kim Trong. Then disaster fell
on her family. Her father and her brother were imprisoned. In order to
solve the family's problem, she had no choice but to sell
herself. From then on, catastrophe after catastrophe fell on her. She
had to follow her fate: being cheated, two times being held
in a pleasure house (whorehouse) as a singer, concubine,
servant. We may say this is a sad story of a talented lady
who had bad fate. In this story Nguyen Du wanted to tell
us through the fate of Kieu to be widened into the fate of
human beings in the wicked feudal society along with
its cruelties and injustice. He wanted to scream out loud,
a scream that breaks our heart. Thus the title of the
story DOAN THANH TAN THANH, or as it is more popularly known,
KIEU's STORY.

Nguyen Du's
inspiration:

Nguyen Du tried to
explain to us that disaster that befell Kieu is the conflict between
talent and fate [See opening lines of the story]. Kieu
had to endure a lot of suffering and hardship because she is beautiful
and talented. The more you are talented, the more bad luck
may strike you.

To Nguyen Du to settle this
conflict, the matter of the heart must come into being. By the end he
wrote that the heart is three times more important than the
talent. The inspiration of Nguyen Du's was the inspiration
of considering men's fate. How could men live in a
society full of injustice and cruelties? Kieu was built in the
image of perfection, she was the essence of desirability by
men. Kieu was not only beautiful, she was also talented. In
one word she was the perfect combination of beauty and talent. Such a
lady must have a good life with happiness but because she
was living in an unjust, cruel,wicked society, all that she got was
turning against her and she fell victim to a disaster that
destroyed her. Kieu had become a victim of the society. But she
never accepted her fate; she was always fighting against
it. There was a rebel in Thuy Kieu. We may say that the
more she fought the more she failed, and as she became
aware of her fate, her failure became more
bitter. Nguyen Du was writing Kieu's story with his
blood and his tears.

V. The Kieu Story and the Vietnamese People

6/8 verses are popular and
easy to understand

The Kieu story is a
masterpiece that every Vietnamese knows

In conversation we refer to
citations from KIEU

In life every event that
happens may refer to a part of Kieu's story

1st of the New Year. KIEU may
be used as a book to predict the future

VI. Conclusion

To solve everything the
matter of the heart comes into being;righteous people
will overcome everything toward a better life.

MANY THANKS TO A WONDERFUL TEACHER. Transcribed with
permission of Mr. Tien - JKS

THE TALE OF
KIEU

Lecture by John
Swensson: October, 1998

Note: All page
references are to the English side of the Yale University Press
bilingual edition, translated by Huynh Sanh
Thong, copyright 1983.

PART I -- Lecture -- pp. 3-67-- Kim Trong
& Scholar Ma Section WHY STUDY KIEU? I think the
logical place to start is with this passage from Alexander
Woodside's "The Historical Background,"
(xi-xviii) which serves as a preface to the referenced text:

To the Vietnamese people
themselves, THE TALE OF KIEU is much more that just a glorious heirloom
from their literary past. It has become a kind of
continuing emotional laboratory in which all the great and
timeless issues of personal
morality and political obligation are tested and resolved (or
left unresolved) for each new generation. Western readers
who are curious about Vietnam and the Vietnamese may well gain
more real wisdom from cultivating a discriminating
appreciation of this poem than they will from reading the entire
library of scholarly and journalistic writings upon modern
Vietnam which has accumulated in the West in the past two decades.
(xi)

Strong words those; I cannot
add to them except to say that an understanding of modern Vietnam, and
the roles of Americans and Vietnamese in the recent
conflict, is one of the aims of this critical thinking
course. A powerful idea that we might understand the
recent past by going to the beginning of the nineteenth
century. I am reminded of Maxine Hong Kingston's comments
to me that by studying war today "we are preventing wars a
thousand years from now." (PREVENTING WARS A THOUSAND YEARS FROM NOW,
May 1994 taped interview with MHK, on reserve in the Open
Media Lab of the LRC). I suppose a secondary aim is to assist
our Vietnamese (and Chinese in view of the sources of
Nguyen Du's work) students to retain an important part of their
culture, and to help non-Asian students to understand our
fellows.

ORGANIZATION OF THE
WORK

This is fairly
straightforward and is illuminated in the introduction by Thong on page
xxix. There is a general introduction from pages 3-9
where we meet the Vuong family and the deceased muse Dam Tien, who,
although she is only a spirit will eventually speak to
Kieu, and who has a real perfume fragrance. The intro. is critical
and bears several readings (My recommendation for
those of you who are reading this for the first time is that
you do a quick read all the way through and then go
back and do an analysis in each section, doing a more
careful reading and using the wonderful endnotes). It
is the detailed introduction to Van and Kieu and young
Vuong, and it introduces a number of themes that resonate
throughout the work. Notice also that there is a god in
the work whom Kieu addresses on p.7. On page 9, after the
break we meet the "youthful scholar," Kim Trong, who
is an admirable first love for Kieu.

From pages 21-29 their love deepens and it
results in a pledge of betrothal. But, alas, on page
29 the plot thickens
and Kim must leave for some years because of his
uncle's death, and even worse, Old Vuong
is arrested on false charges on
p.33, and Kieu sells herself into marriage to save
the family--the concept of loyalty is an
important one throughout. Aided by
family friend, administrator Chung, Kieu is sold to
Scholar Ma, and Old Vuong is released.
Before she marries Ma, Kieu enlists Van to
promise to fulfill her marriage vow
to Kim (39) .

Scholar Ma and his wife, Dame
Tu, are very evil characters (not without some comic relief
somewhat reminiscent of the Thenardiers in LES MIS). Note
the commingling of the flower, nature, and sexual imagery on
pp. 43-45 et. passim.. The melancholy family leave-taking on pp. 47
inspired a playlet put on by my students in Viet Nam
in the summer of l998, which was keenly appreciated by the
Vietnamese students in their audience at the
University of Forestry and Agriculture in Thu Duc, Viet
Nam.

Pages 49-67 are set in the brothel and involve
skullduggery, captivity, mirth-- particularly when
Dame Tu hears from Kieu that her husband slept with
Kieu. Keep in mind that Kieu did not at the
time know he was already married. We
have a wonderful subplot involving a rogue named So Khanh
who promises to help Kieu escape, but
is really in league with Dame Tu, and finally
we meet a young woman, also held captive in the
brothel, who befriends Kieu, Ma Kieu. Dame Tu
then offers instruction to Kieu in how to
be a good courtesan, and this leads us to a
consideration of an alternate translation, and
the start of Part II, the Thuc Ky Tham section,
which begins on
p.67.

(The alternate translation is
a prose translation, KIM VAN KIEU, five copies of which are on
reserve in the DeCillis Collection, along with several
copies of TRUYEN KIEU, in Vietnamese. If you are
really into KIEU, and I hope you will be, check out
a copy of the prose translation and compare some
of the footnotes. While the superiority of the Huynh Sanh
Thong translation will readily become apparent,
the alternate translation will shed additional meaning for serious
students. :-) The prose translation is published in Viet
Nam, is titled KIM-VAN-KIEU. and is translated by Le Xuan Thuy.
)

KIEU II -- Lecture -- pp. 67-113 Thuc
Ky Tham Section

In the introduction, pp.
xxx-xxxi , Huynh Sanh Thong starts off by saying that "The love between
Kieu and the weak willed Thuc eventually matures into
a deep attachment, but sexual attraction is its
main ingredient. Thuc meets Kieu as a customer of the
brothel. Once again the plot evolves based on the departure
of a parent, Thuc's father journeying home by "a stroke of timely
luck" (67). While the relationship is a sexual one it soon
includes music, poetry, and chess.

Kieu then takes up the notion
of her responsibility and Thuc's and urges that there is no future in
their relationship given Thuc's attachment to his first
wife and she proceeds to forecast all of the doom that will
(and does) befall them if they continue. Thuc's argument on p. 71 is
that these matter-and Miss Hoan-- are all far away and she should
pay them no heed, and as a measure of his serious intent he buys
her out of the brothel, and they live together for 6 months
until Thuc's father returns. And here the wrath of the
father that Kieu had foretold comes home with a vengeance and a trip to
the judge.

The father turns them into a
judge and it here that Kieu must make a moral choice, choosing to
accept punishment for her deeds, or return to the brothel.
She replies with grace "I shall endure the thunder of the
law" (75). Here she is beaten as Thuc is forced to watch. Thuc's pain
is so intense that the Judge's heart is moved, and he shows mercy
and orders a wedding. (I am reminded of Shakespeare's Portia
in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE dispensing justice and mercy in a
European society, that is younger than the Asian
societies here. Where is this in American literature?)

Old Thuc's heart is softened
also BUT they still have, as Kieu has also foretold, Miss Hoan to deal
with-- and her mother!! Miss Hoan is one of the strongest
characters in the novel, physically violent and with a
malicious cunning that guarantees that Kieu will be punished sorely
for her deeds. On Kieu's urging Thuc returns to his wife
(79) and we see, especially on p. 83 his weak will that Thong started
us off with. His refusal to reveal his relationship with
Kieu which was the purpose of his journey shows how
weak he is and we as reader experience the dramatic irony
of knowing what Miss Hoan knows and what her intent
is.

In a brief vignette on pp. 84-85 we meet Miss Hoan's
mother and get some insight into why
the daughter is so mean--the mother
graciously accedes to a scheme that involves
kidnap, bondage, and public torture (Hell hath
no fury. . .as Shakespeare tells
us).

What follows next is the dramatic
subplot of the kidnapping and burning of Thuc
and Kieu's apartment complete with the planting of
an unclaimed corpse which provides more torture
for Old Thuc who has to oversee the funeral of
what he believes to be
Kieu.

Young Thuc returns and consults a
psychic--the importance of fortune telling is one that we
Westerners do not appreciate--indeed in Viet
Nam fortunes are told by the text of THE TALE OF
KIEU itself. And the psychic correctly foretells
the plot"when you two stand face to face again,/how strange,
you will avoid each other's eyes!"
(89).

On p. 91 we meet another
young girl (cf. Ma Kieu in Part I) who befriends and advises Kieu who is
now in the service of Miss Hoan, and the Buddhist
notion of karma/justice/responsibility is repeated
"Perhaps you must atone for some past sin" (91). But
she then continues "but malice [Miss Hoan] brought you here, and
not pure chance" (91). This text is so rich you can almost stop
anywhere and do a textual analysis-- which is also why the
Vietnamese fortune tellers can randomly select any line and tell a fortune
from it.

Eventually Miss Hoan
softens--although this becomes a necessary plot point for what is to
follow--but not before continuing her own plot to
humiliate her husband and Kieu by having Kieu wait in them and
play music for them together. Miss Hoan finally lets
up a bit on p. 99 and grant Kieu's request to become a
Nun. Conveniently there is a shrine in the garden that
Kieu can be cloistered in, just close enough for Thuc
to sneak over to, which he does, all of the time observed by his
wife. But the reunion of Thuc and Kieu is quite
beautiful and Kieu merely asks his help in her escape. She is willing to
forego their own happiness and leave him with Miss
Hoan. But alas, Miss Hoan has overheard it all, and Kieu is left no choice
but to escape. Like Valjean leaving the Bishop of
Digne's house, she takes the silver as she goes.

We next meet the character of
Giac Duyen who would make for an interesting paper. I am still not
sure what to make of her. A prioress, she instructs
Kieu in what nuns are supposed to do and all is well
until a pilgrim sees the silver and identifies it
as Miss Hoan's . Kieu confesses and Giac asks a neighboring
family to provide shelter for Kieu. Alas, "Dame Bac soon
proved a colleague of Dame Tu" (109) and Kieu is
back in a brothel again. I remain confused by the apparent
marriage to Bac Hanh (whose first name means "false")
but he is a parallel to Scholar Ma. Indeed the # of times that Kieu is
married is a mystery to me. I hear various reports
from 2-9 and a textual examination must be aided by more cultural
expertise than I possess. Perhaps some of our students have
some answers.

The final line worth
mentioning in this section "O Great Potter's Wheel, how you treat
womanhood (112) certainly sums up one of the major
themes of this work, and reminds me of Maxine Hong
Kingston's vignette in CHINA MEN called
"On Discovery." So much for Thuc Ky Tham and Miss
Hoan--though we shall see them again. Time to turn our
thoughts to Kieu's next great love, the soldier Tu Hai.

A second customer, a
General, turns up to buy Kieu from the second brothel, with "A
tiger's beard, a swallow's jaw, and brows as
thick as silkworms" (113). Note Du's use of nature imagery (and
go to the De Cillis Collection and view
the lacquerware of Tu Hai on the wall opposite the clock. He
is shown in mother of pearl shell with exactly these
characteristics and arrows in his back, standing
up, deceased--see upright death of Lord Tu, p. 131).
Once again it is not clear whether Kieu and Tu
Hai are formally married, though note 2212 implies
that as does the celebration on pp.117-19. They
clearly share a strong love and are happy
together. Tu Hai is a very popular general, but not venerated
in Vietnamese history because he does not
repel foreign invaders as did Tran Hung Dao (the
Mongols) or The Trung sisters (the Chinese in
40 A.D.).

We now come to the
popular trial scene with the theme of justice, or is it retribution?
Ma Kieu and Giac Duyen are invited as honored
guests which leads us to believe that Giac was not being
duplicitous in Part II when she referred Kieu to the
Bac family (107 et. ff.). Kieu first rewards Thuc, though
using the ant in the cup metaphor from Miss Hoan, her
earlier chief tormentor. Miss Hoan apologizes,
reminds Kieu that she had had a change of heart and
let her tend the shrine and Kieu forgives her and sets her
free!! (I am reminded of the actions of all of the
coup plotters and successive governments in South Viet
Nam in the early and mid-1960's, which we shall read about
in Halberstam's THE MAKING OF A
QUAGMIRE, next. Perhaps this is why they
constantly forgave each other, reformed, and tried
again.)

But the mercy is short lived. Bac
Hanh, Dame Bac, So Khanh, Dame Tu, and Scholar Ma are not
only executed, but tortured as well. (Perhaps that is
why Diem was dispatched in the M113 armored
personnel carrier built at the FMC plant
on Coleman Avenue in San
Jose?)

Giac Duyen takes her leave
with a promise of a reunion within five years guaranteed by another
seer, Tam Hop. And in that five years Tu Hai is
victorious in many battles, accompanied by his first lady,
Kieu. The partnership is taken advantage of by Lord Ho
Ton Hien whose entreaties convince Kieu to convince Tu Hai that
Ho will be an ally, not an enemy. Alas, the end of Tu Hai, because of
Kieu's actions (I am reminded of The Moor of Venice &
Desdemona, but in that case it was the Moor who was
convinced of the wrong thing). We have already noted the
powerful death of Tu Hai, and Kieu is once again
in captivity, this time playing "Cruel Fate" on her
lute for Lord Ho.

And it appears that Kieu
marries again (135), forced into it by her captor! And then we start back
to the beginning with Kieu communicating with Dam Tien,
lamenting her fifteen years of suffering under the cruel
"wheels of fate" (137). The next part starts with Giac Duyen and the
seer Tam Hop weighing the balance of Kim's actions "When
judged for her past sins, Kieu must be charged/ with reckless
love, but not with wanton lust" (139). Tam Hop
continues:

"She caused one death, but saved ten thousand
lives./She knew right thoughts from wrong, fair deeds from
foul./ Whose merits equal her good works
in truth?"(139).

Let's go back for a minute back to the
opening stanza of the poem:

A hundred years in this life span on
earth/talent and destiny are apt to feud./You must go through a
play of ebb and flow/and watch such things as make you sick at
heart/Is it so strange that losses balance gains? /

There is both the conflict of
talent & destiny (individual actions versus fate) and the notion,
explained in note 5 that "losses balance gains" refers
to a "Chinese adage, which makes the common observation that no
one is perfect or enjoys complete happiness, [which] has a Vietnamese
equivalent in a folk saying: '[who] gets this loses that'"
(169).

In fulfillment of her dream, Kieu
escapes from Lord Ho by jumping into the
river- her second suicide attempt? -
and after floating downstream is rescued by two
fishermen who were there for
the purpose of saving her and fulfilling Tam
Hop's prediction of Kieu's and Giac
Duyen's reunion within five years. And Dam Tien also
appears again with a prediction, finally some good news:

with many days ahead, you shall
fulfill/your great past love, reap future happiness./ (141)

But what happened to Kim
Trong, Kieu's great past love whom we last saw in Part I?

(Their leave-taking is captured in another
piece of lacquerware in theDeCillis Collection, which depicts Kieu and Van, Kim and young Vuong, Kim's horse
and the mountains he will journey beyond. The next piece
shows Kieu lamenting the absence of Kim. The third piece
shows Kieu playing her pear shaped lute form Thuc, and the fourth Tu
Hai, noted above)

Kim had come back to the
awful news of Kieu's departure and the plot summary in lines 2775 et. ff.
is worth noting, but I will not summarize nor quote it here.
Kim takes care of the family and sends emissaries looking for Kieu, and
to assuage his grief, the family arranges for him
to marry Van, which you will recall Kieu had asked Van to do. On
page 149 Van dreams that she will be reunited with
Kieu, and Old Do, a clerk whom we have not met before,
summarizes Kieu's life. This summary leads Kim to find
Thuc to get the rest of the story, which continues to the top of p. 153
at which Kim's supposed death by drowning in the
river is reported.

So the
family makes an altar to Kieu, it is discovered by
Giac Duyen, and we have arrived at the
final resolution of the
plot for the next 14 pages (remember
that half are in one language, half
in another-- effectively 7 pages of
resolution.) There is little merit
in my summarizing this portion. It should be
read carefully to be appreciated. Note, though, the
solution of Kieu's marrying Kim,
but not sleeping with him-- she lives
as a nun, because she has
lost her chastity. He continues to
live and have children with Van. Note
also that the family thanks Buddha for the
reunion.

Of Kim and Kieu:

"Of love and friendship
they fulfilled both claims--/ they shared no bed but joys
of lute and verse/ . . . Their wishes all came true since
fate so willed,/ and of two lovers marriage made two
friends./ (165)

[and I hope you the
EWRT 2 students have enjoyed these pages of
verse.]

Of the story:

"This we have learned: with
Heaven rests all things./ Heaven appoints each human to a
place./ If doomed to roll in dust, we'll roll in
dust;/ we'll sit on high when destined for high seats./. .
. In talent take no overweening pride,/ for talent
and disaster form a pair./ Our karma we must carry as our
lot--/ let's stop decrying Heaven's whims and
quirks./ Inside ourselves there lies the root of
good:/ the heart outweighs all talents on this earth./
(167) and finally the concluding lines May these
crude words, culled one by one and strung, beguile an hour
or two of your long night./ (167)

My wish for you is the same as the
author's. I hope you enjoy your study of this great work. Like
all great works of literature it returns to you what you
invest in it, and you should return to it ten years from
now to measure your own change. Its words will still be the same.

Please use the LISTSERV or FORUM -I will post the lectures there also
which is a password protected area--to
agree/disagree/comment. I have gotten responses so far ranging from "I
could not put this book down" to "it is an immoral
book that should not be taught in our class." I very much appreciate
the comment about morality since this is a critical
thinking course, and whether I agree with that opinion is
not so important as whether YOU do. Later in the course I
want us to consider the morality of American actions and
Vietnamese actions in the war. This is kind of like the CLIFF'S NOTES. Now
it is up to you to think critically. What are YOUR
thoughts? -- JKS

Musashi-bo Benkei and Tu
Hai:

Japanese and Vietnamese Heroes, Dying Standing
Up

Have you ever heard of
Musashi-bo Benkei? Tu Hai, in THE TALE OF KIEU, reminded
me of this famous character in Japanese
history. Benkei became avery faithful follower of
the aristocratic warrior Yoshitsune. As a retainer,
Benkei sacrificed his life to protect his
master from the attacks ofYoshitsune's brother,
Yoritomo. Even after being strapped with so
many arrows and he was mortally wounded, he
stood still, did not let the enemies go by and reach his
master. Benkei's strong will to guard Yoshitsune kept his body
"firm as rock and hard as bronze" (Du 131)--just
like Tu Hai in the story--and this shows how devoted and
committed he was. I feel that Benkei and Tu Hai were
somewhat similar. I think not only was Benkei loyal
to his master, but was proud of himself being a retainer of the
great warrior who-- Benkei thought he was-- worth
sacrificing his own life. And Tu Hai, who was very
faithful to his wife Kieu, and who agreed with
her to stop expanding his niche and to have a
truce, was killed by the government-- his foe.
Like Benkei, he stood still even after he was dead Both
Benkei and Tu Hai died after all, but one thing that I caught a
glimpse in their death was that both of them were loyal to
the people who they loved, and they died proudly. My
interpretation of Tu Hai may be wrong, but are they not they
similar? I think it is
very interesting. Regards, Kayo Sato

P.S. I really enjoyed reading THE TALE OF
KIEU (although it was pretty tough to
understand!)